There is little rhyme or reason to it, but the Chicago Bulls simply appear to have a confounding mastery over the Toronto Raptors.

Chicago ran its winning streak against the Raptors up to 10 games, mounting a monster comeback from down 19 points, behind more brilliance from familiar foe Jimmy Butler in a 123-118 win.

Stop if you’ve heard that last part before. Butler had scored 42 on the Raptors about a year ago — a Bulls-record 40 of them in the second half — in another comeback win. Butler was slacking a bit Saturday, only piling in 32 of his 42 in the second half and overtime and Toronto hasn’t won against the Bulls since New Year’s Eve, 2013.

DeMar DeRozan helped force overtime by scoring 10 straight points for the Raptors late in the fourth and into the extra frame, but he missed a late shot and Kyle Lowry saw an attempt roll out at the regulation buzzer, before Butler scored seven more in overtime to put away the Raptors.

“We’re doing it as a team, I made some shots tonight,” Butler said, underplaying his remarkable effort. He mentioned Doug McDermott, who once again hit several huge shots against the Raptors and added a career-best 10 rebounds after a career-best 30 points last time against Toronto — but this was Butler’s show.

The Raptors got 36 points from DeRozan and 27 from Lowry but gave up way too many second chances and got obliterated 60-41 on the boards.

What makes that worse is the rebounding battle was even at the half and Chicago had one defensive rebound.

“We gave up 16 offensive rebounds in the second half, that was the ball game,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey said.

“We did a good job of getting stops … now you’ve got to come up with the rebound.”

Added Lowry: “That game will bother me for a minute.”

To make things even worse,, the red-hot Houston Rockets and MVP front-runner James Harden were waiting in Toronto for a Sunday tipoff that would start only about 15 hours or so after they returned to Toronto.

The Raptors wasted the best opening first half of the season from both centre Jonas Valanciunas and fill-in power forward Lucas Nogueira and some brilliant defence in the second and third quarters, where the Bulls shot only 28% as the visitors built up a big lead.

Bulls forward Taj Gibson and Lowry had insisted earlier in the day that there was no black magic at work. Chicago doesn’t have any kind of hold over the Raptors, they said.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Gibson said of no Raptors wins in 2014, 2015, or 2016.

“I wish I could tell you (why), I really say we really get lucky in the fourth quarters,” he said.

“We’ve had leads, they’ve made runs on us,” Lowry told me at shootaround.

And what a run the Bulls made in this one. Down by 19, the home side cut the deficit to 12 after three and again midway through the fourth, then went on a 14-0 run to take the lead, before DeRozan did enough to give the Raptors a shot at a win.

Neither team could get much separation there, but the Bulls did enough to pull out another one, with Butler reminding everyone that he just might be the second-best player in the Eastern Conference behind only LeBron James.

Butler not only takes on some of the toughest defensive matchups every night, but he also scores at will. He is in the midst of the NBA’s second-longest streak of 20-point games, with a personal two-game streak of 42 against the Raptors.

This one will sting.

“It’s definitely frustrating. I’ll keep that in mind next time we play (the Bulls),” DeRozan said of the futility streak.

A rare bright spot? Pivotal power forward Patrick Patterson, who has missed four straight due to a sore knee, said there is a “good chance” he suits up against the Rockets.

The all-star point guard recently compared himself to the Marvel superhero, known for his ability to heal from injuries remarkably quickly, among other things and has been doing the Wolverine thing lately.

He got cut in the mouth in Utah and returned to score 19 points in the fourth quarter in a brilliant performance. He stepped on someone's foot in the rematch, hurting his ankle, but walked it off and didn't miss even a play, returning to eventually sink the Jazz again.

On Saturday, Lowry took a huge fall after grabbing an offensive rebound, but stayed in and had another stellar performance.

“Ankle is fine, time to work,” Lowry had told Postmedia before the game.